On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he was backing a proposal from U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., to ensure President Joe Biden can not relaunch the nuclear deal with Iran first enacted by the Obama administration and later scrapped by the Trump administration.
Other backers of Blackburn’s proposal include U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Mike Lee, R-Utah.
“The Obama-Biden administration bent over backwards to appease Iran and even sent a jumbo-jet filled with $400 million in pallets of cash to the murderous regime,” said Blackburn. “It’s time for Biden to wake up and realize that the U.S. cannot negotiate an honest agreement with Iran because they are a fanatical, anti-American regime. No amount of negotiating or ‘indirect discussions’ can change that. My legislation will prevent Biden from circumventing the U.S. Senate to salvage the failed deal or forge a new, just as disastrous one.”
Blackburn’s “Iran Nuclear Deal Advice and Consent Act,” according to her office, “would prevent federal funds from being obligated or expended in the furtherance of rejoining the JCPOA and would require current and future presidential administrations to submit in writing to the House and Senate a JCPOA successor agreement as a treaty versus an international agreement.”
Scott weighed in on the proposal on Wednesday.
“President Trump was right to abandon the reckless Iran nuclear deal that President Obama got us into,” said Scott. “Iran has shown time and time again that it cannot be trusted. We must do everything we can to oppose re-joining this bad deal.”
Blackburn’s bill was sent to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Over in the U.S. House, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., introduced the bill last in March.
“The events of this past weekend demonstrate the extreme delicacy of the conflict between our Israeli allies and Iran, the largest state-sponsor of terror in the world,” Barr said this week. “Now, Iran announced their intentions to increase their uranium enrichment, accelerating their path towards a nuclear weapon. By even considering rejoining the JCPOA at this point, the Biden Administration is threatening to undermine the American-Israeli alliance and further exacerbate the conflict over Iran’s nuclear weapons pursuit. Barr-Blackburn ensures Congress will serve as a check on the Biden administration’s urge to rejoin the failed JCPOA and reclaims Congressional oversight over the international treaty process which is enshrined in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.”
Barr has rounded up six co-sponsors from the GOP minority, including U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC. The bill is before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Reach Kevin Derby at [email protected].
